Cricket: Giving a chuck

By PAUL LEWIS


New Zealand will not face the full force of Muttiah Muralitharan's doosra in Sri Lanka's cricket tour this summer. While the cricketer should know next week whether he will make the tour, it will still be too early to take advantage of a landmark ruling by cricket's governing body changing the law affecting chuckers - allowing Muralitharan to bowl his infamous doosra delivery.

The International Cricket Conference, armed with a battery of electronic evidence from the recent ICC Champions Trophy tournament, has concluded that most bowlers are chuckers - and have changed the law affecting throwers to set new limits of latitude regarding the amount of arm-straightening permitted. However, the new laws are expected to come into force only when the chief executives of all 10 test match playing countries meet in February - and the Sri Lankan tour begins in December.

The new levels have allowed Muralitharan to bowl the doosra - the delivery which spins away from a right-handed batsman even though it is delivered with an off-spin action. The ICC had banned him from the action, but the new levels, set by an ICC committee including test bowlers Michael Holding and Angus Fraser as well as Indian batting great Sunil Gavaskar, allow him to unleash it again.

Muralitharan is the only player in the history of cricket to have bowled this particular delivery - which has been the subject of trenchant criticism from leading cricketers, including Pakistan's former captain and spin genius Mushtaq Mohammed, who say that it is physically impossible to bowl the doosra without chucking the ball. Murali has an arm deformed at birth which he cannot straighten, which only adds to the controversy.

For the uninitiated, chucking involves bowling with a crooked arm - which can give a bowler added speed and control over direction. It has long been a controversial part of cricket with many fast bowlers down the years suspected of being chuckers. There have been fewer spinners, accused of the same thing before Murali bowled along with his unique arm action and enormously successful career - which has him just behind Australia's Shane Warne (with 541 test wickets) as the leading test wicket-taker of all time.

The decision prompted former Sri Lankan test player Aravinda de Silva to predict 32-year-old Muralitharan, the second-highest wicket taker in test cricket with 532 victims, would end up taking at least 700 test wickets.

"He has so much cricket left in him that I have little doubt that Murali will reach the 700-wicket mark in test cricket," he said.

"The ICC has done the right thing (by clearing him to bowl his doosra) and he can go ahead with his usual repertoire of bowling. I am glad for Murali, who will be a relieved man now."

But, former England batsman Geoff Boycott slammed the proposal to relax the rules on chucking as the result of pressure from Sri Lanka on behalf of Muralitharan. Boycott claimed the development was nothing to do with consistency and fairness, describing it as a 'sad day for cricket'.

The blunt-speaking Yorkshireman told the BBC: "I think it's been brought in through pressure from Sri Lanka and Murali's supporters. It's a sad day for cricket that this pressure can allow Muralitharan to bowl whatever he wants."

The ICC's rationale stems from electronic research undertaken at the recent ICC Champions Trophy. Using data assembled by three leading bio-mechanists, this is the most extensive study yet into bowling actions, as well as the most revealing. Cameras filming at 250 frames a second (TV cameras shoot at 25) have revealed a complex chain of movements such as adduction and hyperextension, all of which can give the illusion of a bent arm. The detection of a kinked elbow with the human eye only happens at around 15 degrees. Anything less is guesswork. Previously, the ICC chucking tolerance levels allowed a straightening of the arm by five degrees for spinners, 7.5 degrees for medium-pacers and 10 for quick bowlers.

The ICC research revealed that Murali, far from being in a minority of law-breakers with his unique action, is actually part of an overwhelming majority, at least when scrutinised by scientific instruments rather than the naked eye.

Even bowlers with textbook actions, such as Glenn McGrath, Shaun Pollock, Stephen Harmison and Allan Donald bend their arms as much as 12 degrees under match conditions.

That is now being extended to 15 degrees whatever speed you bowl at, though it will still be left to umpires and match referees to lodge their suspicions in writing to the ICC before anyone is investigated. Murali's doosra was previously found to involve straightening of the arm by 14 degrees.

Those exceeding the new threshold will be the responsibility of a new body, due to be set up by the ICC. After remedial work (which must begin within four weeks of the bowler first being reported), the new body, which will include bio-mechanists and former test bowlers, have the power to fail a bowler.